


On Dragon Wings We Dream

by Merfilly



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - McCaffrey
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, New Year's Resolutions, Slice of Life, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-02
Updated: 2009-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short scenes of Sorka and Sean's lives</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Dragon Wings We Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Yuletide Import Version: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1633817

Learning on the fly...Jays, but there had never been such an appropriate saying as that was now. Sean watched the dragons beneath him, frustrated again because they were all too few. His seventeen originals, (it still ached to think of Marco and Duluth) plus the six that Wind Blossom had managed to hatch out properly, were a faint hope for Pern. Especially as the six were not yet capable of joining the fight against Thread directly.

He turned his head away from the painful whimpers on the wind. He closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them, Sorka was there. He did not permit himself to step fully into her hold, but his hand closed tightly around hers. They would make it.

`~`~`~`~`

Sorka's eyes blazed wide open, unseeing. She was lost in the feeling of flight, set free by the mighty strokes of Faranth's wings, far ahead of the seven bronzes trying vainly to catch her. The woman, rising up on her toes as she stretched toward the skies could feel the press of the wind, the freedom of the wide open skies above the mountains more than the presence of the seven men circling her. They didn't matter, anymore than the bronzes behind her glorious queen did.

They flew high, they flew long, until at long last a pair of bronze wings brushed against hers, following her flight pattern. In the next moment a tail lashed around hers, and then the bronze's neck was under hers. She noted without surprise that Carenath was the only bronze that had kept up, that none of her other suitors were in sight.

That was as right as Sean being the one to press tight to Sorka, and the two pairings spiraled into new pleasures.

`~`~`~`~`

Sixty eggs awaited the gathering colonists, sixty bright shining hopes for the struggling colony. Sean watched them all, felt the pride swell again in his chest. From twenty three to hundreds, as the queens came into their maturity.

That Sorka and Faranth, the last pairing made that first Impression, had been the first to give them a future generation was something that settled Sean's spirits, calling to the more primitive superstition of fate and what people made of it.

He watched as the young people he had called for from the administrators walked out onto the hot sands. He noted some nervousness, but he was confident enough for them all. Once Impression was made, they'd all settle.

Riding did that, and there wasn't anything that could beat it in all the galaxy.

`~`~`~`~`

Sean laid against his wife's legs, ear against her bulging stomach, eyes closed tightly as more nightmares washed themselves from him. The feel of her hand stroking his hair did little to soothe; what if something went wrong this time?

"Shh, love. I'm here. The baby's doing just fine, and Basil said worrying won't do anything but hinder," Sorka told him.

"But Alianne...Chereth..."

"Are missed, Sean." She shifted, making him look up at her. "We live today, and plan for tomorrow. Do you think I fly without fear when you're in the upper parts of a Fall?"

"That's different."

"No, Sean. It's as much a risk as this, and more so, because we fly Fall at least once a week it seems. So stop fretting about the risks, and look forward to the joys."

`~`~`~`~`

Dragonmad. That was what everyone, including Red and Mairi Hanrahan, called Michael. Watching him, Sean was inclined to agree. Sometimes, Sorka would mention that it was as if her joy at Impressing Faranth had spilled over into their unborn son and tripled itself.

The boy was sturdy and strong, always willing to help a rider with feeding or cleaning. If he managed to finagle his way to the Weyr just before a Fall, he would pitch in after with the medics, slathering the painkillers on, or just talking to riders to calm them, so they could calm their beasts.

There were eggs on the sands again, and Sean kept looking at his son, though the boy was younger than he usually preferred. He considered, and then made his way to the nearest blue rider. Somehow, the smallest male dragons had gained an extra sense for who made good riders. A quick conversation, and the rider confirmed his own suspicion. Turning on a heel, Sean went to find Sorka. Their son would stand at Hatching.

`~`~`~`~`

"Just too many of us, Sean." Sorka paced fitfully. "The battle was just one aspect of it, though by far the most tragic."

Sean watched his lifelong partner and wife. "I know. I have been thinking about it."

"I know you have, Sean, but...poor Tarrie is a wreck. The other two aren't much better. We can't risk this again."

"Redheaded gal of mine, will you trust me just once?"

The exasperated words finally cut through Sorka's pacing and fears, and she spun to him, holding onto him. "When haven't I, Sean Connell?"

"That's more like it," he murmured against her hair, and drew her to the sleeping chamber. Time enough later to worry the way she was; right now, the Weyr needed its senior queen rider settled.

`~`~`~`~`

More silver in her hair now, Sean noted, joining Sorka with a mug of klah for each of them up on the ledge of their personal weyr. Sorka took hers with a soft 'thank you'. Below them, many dragons sunned and hunted and washed below them with riders in attendance, so many of them either descended from Faranth on the dragon side, or even from them personally on the human side.

"Faranth won't fly to mate again," Sorka said softly. "I know it in my bones."

"Carenath won't fly any other." Sean watched her, as she watched the unique society that was a Weyr. He knew she was tired. So was he, for that matter. So many were gone now, so many they had begun with, or others who came later.

"How do we do this? How do we choose the next ones?" Now she looked at him, and the lines around her eyes from squinting at the sun reflected on dragon backs were visible.

"The same as when we opened the other Weyrs, my heart."

He wrapped an arm around her, and held on, as both faced the idea that their time was passing. Yet deep inside both of them, they knew one thing. Pern was thriving, an independent world all her own, and it could not have happened save for them, and all like them.

The dragonriders of Pern would go on, no matter who led them, with the examples of Sean, Sorka, and sixteen other pioneering souls who had first walked among dragon eggs and been found worthy.


End file.
